Poetry by Austin Beaton

Tristan Loper CC


Recipe Anxious

Months narrow in
single overcast cone
around this bathroom
without mirror to re-meet the self,
watch remembering the forgetting
to floss, get tires rotated,
forcing of wanting
to not want to
rip inner pink of the head
from under its scalp
skin. Smoke smell (practiced
assumed) not existent
(even when it is). Scan:
retinas shift, sunny
oak branch shade
in wind. Anger towards
a neutral stranger’s
way of face. Mouth inhale
air (should be spit).
Sweat high beams—behind
shoulder backs--
flashin’ ya
though the driver
maybe went over a hump

​(maybe doesn’t mean it like that);
you won’t really know
like you won’t really know
anything
is a receipt
for staying in, counting:
blood pulse, 7 car pile up
thought, the protons
in the bed post.
We regret to inform you
we don’t regret
to inform you
the morning is an envelope
is empty. Look:
not all people built
happy (though every one
built something). Race:
the truth you can’t
sprint out body, heart beat
ceiling fan felt spinning
you walk, trying staying
inside a name.




Self Citizen’s Arrest

Sleepless-ish night indictment:
forgetting 16 day 43 minute
since 59 humans
shot by trigger easy
fingered like XBOX
joystick. On anxiety’s trial
for being complicit to the binary
of shampoos,
pink fragrance over blue
to unbottle myself to want
not you one woman,
but women woman unlike
man men (smelling rose petal,
ginger skirt walking
hair whiffs). Subpoena for
worship of false Jesus:
the seagull V shape
ass jean wrinkle
an altar to underwear
covers hidden skeleton
flesh-wrapped in anecdotes,
fibs, perjury to the self
assuming the body understands
time: innumerable folds
in the black origami
shaping a decade
we can’t predict
unless you wait
and still maybe not
(these good ole days
we might bathe in
laid silent
parallel the sidewalk,
stories to unstack
later (describing what was
so now isn’t)). Probational
of parking tickets and skipped
yoga classes. Citation of
citation. Sentenced
to be stuck around
till the alarm clock fusses
or one pigeon
flaps out the waiting room
of patience
we forget we were in,
walled below calypso
goddesses aging to learn
they often wish
their cul-de-sacs would flatten
to stage sets & be wheeled
towards anywhere
but here.




Elegy for Playing House

I kiss incorrectly different
against affection surprises,
slice of watermelon
tossed out neighbored window
under hot April
forecasted 46.
Throat in a neck
(black box of sex)
bullshitts the idiocy of athletics,
importance to start the conga
while I relearn me
to teach you anger again.
Since you woke and walked out
rubbing toddler eyes
in a room of beards
cooking meth with Daddy

when I forget a laptop
on an airplane
you fuck me.
With internet it’s easy
to iron a philosophy
upon who we lust
when dysfunction since the sandbox,
simple to see past future chaos,
realize we didn’t know
there wasn’t much wrong
with there being not much wrong.
Try and get back at the cosmos:
skip brushing teeth before bed,
pretend to prefer cuddling
the ghost
one less woman
between me and Momma.

​

Bio: Austin Beaton studied Spanish and Creative Writing and regret at the University of Oregon, where he was a finalist for the Walter and Nancy Kidd Memorial Writing Competition in Poetry. His work has appeared in Peach Mag, The Stay Project, (b)OINK, Porridge Magazine, Voicemail Poems and is forthcoming in Oxidant Engine and the Angel City Review. He lives near the ocean in San Luis Obispo, California where he drinks flat H20 from a sparkling water bottle, bakes figs, and gives nicknames.

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